


Where I End (You Begin)

by maccabird_23



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 10:33:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2769821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maccabird_23/pseuds/maccabird_23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jonathan had been born without a name on his wrist but was lucky enough to have been too young to ever feel that barren place in his gut and head where his Soul Mate should have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where I End (You Begin)

 

 

Jonathan had been born without a name on his wrist but was lucky enough to have been too young to ever feel that barren place in his gut and head where his Soul Mate should have been. His parents had relayed in detail that the first seven months of his life had been fitful. He had been a restless baby, always moments away from tearing up.

 

Then one evening in late November he had stopped mid-wail. His maman had been holding his tiny limbs tight, trying to put him down for a nap and she recalled his face going serene. He gave out a long sigh and sagged in her arms like something he had been fighting for the past seven months had been lifted, given in and let him finally be content.

 

It surprised no one that when she woke him from his nap there was a name scribbled across the inseam of his wrist, looped and large, firmly stating its permanence in his life. It took two specialists one month to figure out that the name spelled out _Patrick Kane._

 

It only took two more days for them to find the one-month-old newborn born with the name _Jonathan_ on his wrist. The last name not being deciphered until that faithful day they got a call from Winnipeg.   

 

From that moment their invisible connection, still delicate and thin because of their age had been marked and noted. The subsection on their birth certificates for soul mate’s name filled out and filed away.

 

After that is was solely up to their parents to build the foundation for their bond. Taking tiny bundles of human across the border - both ways and wrapping them together in their Bonding Blanket. Easing their need to have a tactile connection to their Soul Mate.

 

From there it only grew and Johnny could recollect without the fuzziness that comes with memory the first time he felt Patrick was near without seeing him. He had been five - in a locker room waiting for the start of a game. It was in Vancouver and Pat had no business being there. They had set up a play date for the week after and Patrick was supposed to be in Wisconsin visiting family.

 

Johnny had not been fooled, not when his own mind felt that clear tug like a lace on a shoe, tightening and crossing. Without any prompt or warning he had stood up and walked right out on the ice, ten minutes before the game and scanned the stands until he felt more than saw the tiny blond head, perched on his father’s lap.

 

He had waved and made a fool of himself, screaming Patrick at the top of his tiny lungs. Patrick stood up, teetering on his father’s knees and waved back, yelling Johnny’s name.

 

The crowd of fans had laughed, recognizing the call of Soul Mates, even ones so young. Johnny scored a Hattrick that game but nothing felt as amazing as when he was finally allowed to envelop the smaller boy in his arms. Johnny never thought that anything could rival the touch of his Soul Mate in his arms.

 

 _Jesus H. Christ, Kaner. Just take a piss. Its not like we’re gonna start the game without you._ Jonny ducked, tape flying passed the side of his head and hitting the wall. He met the glare of his Soul Mate from the other side of the room. Sending expletives through their connection. The stare down only lasted a few seconds before Pat got up and rushed to the bathroom.

 

Tying his laces he could feel the need to pee at the back of his teeth but recognized from experience that it was not his own. He let out a tiny sigh when he finally felt the tinge of relief in his own empty bladder.

 

 _Raanta hasn’t smiled all day. Better talk to him after the game. Give him some encouragement._ Johnny heard the words roll through the back of his head before nodding in agreement, knowing Pat could feel it – was probably nodding to himself as he tucked himself away.

 

 _I’ll take care of Raanta. You talk to Saad. He’s been acting weird since we hung out with Leddy last night._ Johnny taped his wrists, watching Kaner as he reached into his locker, back turned and shrugging in answer. _What’s that supposed to mean_?

 

Pat turned to put on his skates, meeting Johnny’s eyes briefly before shrugging again. _Nothing much. Its just doesn’t seem right. Saad and Shawsy are Soul Mates. I just don’t get why he keeps Leddy so close._

 

Johnny rolled his eyes. It was an argument they had over a million times, becoming less conversation and more heated as the media picked up on more controversial couplings. The general populace debating whether Soul Mates should be bonded so young or even had to bond at all. The Beatles _All You Need is Love_ being the outcry of nontraditional pairings, who didn’t believe the name on your wrist was always the name that was on your heart.  

 

Jon didn’t care either way, firmly believing that as long as he was allowed to be happy then everyone else should be given the same right. _Saad isn’t hurting anyone, least of all Shaw._

It wasn’t something that the team talked about at parties or publicly but they all knew that Shaw and Bollig had been together before the trade. Saad and Shaw might live together as a perfectly bonded pair but there were always two other people in that relationship.

 

 _It just pisses me off when Voids mock Soul Mates. Saying that the names on our wrists are meaningless._ Johnny winced at the slur. Calling someone who was born without a name on their wrist a Void was the worst insult, pointing out that they were born without their other half ever existing. Johnny doesn’t remember the time but there was seven months of his life where he was a Void.

 

Bollig and Leddy didn’t have names on their wrists and there was a chance that they never would, unless their Soul Mates were yet to be born. _Let it go, Pat. If you go out on the ice upset then so do I. And you’re gonna work this shit out with Saad. He looks up to you more than anyone else. Or did the mullet not give it away._

He watched as a small smile played out on Kane’s face. Jonathan’s other half rolling his eyes heavenward before throwing a glove at Saad’s head. At the attention Saad turned, facing Patrick. “Late dinner tonight. Just me and you, Manchild.”   

 

The game against the Islanders was lackluster at best, giving them their first lost in weeks. They didn’t deserve anything else with the shit way they were playing, tired at the end of a short road-trip.

 

The only thing Johnny had to look forward to was a warm bed and a warmer body – once Pat got back from Saad’s room. Neither came, Jon feeling agitated as he rolled around in bed, hearing Pat’s anger at the back of his head. He was moments away from marching into Saad’s room when Pat came storming into theirs. Slamming the door before he threw himself on top of Johnny.

 

Jon rolled with it, bringing Pat impossibly closer as they sunk together like rocks into the ocean, getting lost in the comfort of each other’s mind. _What the hell happened?_

Pat found that hot place behind Johnny’s ear, that he had claimed as his own years ago - his hiding place and comfort zone. There were few places on his body that didn’t feel owned by Patrick and the same in return. Sometimes when Jon couldn’t sleep, his hands would seek out the cushy space where Patrick’s thighs met, warming his palms until he fell asleep.  

 

 _Saad said we were brainwashed. He said that our bond was barbaric._ Johnny felt his stomach drop, unable to visualize such cruel words coming out of Brandon’s soft-spoken mouth. He heard it coming out of the mouths of different activists, as they sat at round tables, debating the status of coupling in the modern world.

 

They said bonding Soul Mates at birth was archaic, in the same vain as arranged marriages. Arguing that people born with and without names written on their wrists should be able to choose whomever they wanted to bond with when they were adults. Grown enough to make their own choices.  

 

It hit close to home and Jon knew Patrick felt personally attacked. There had never been a time Johnny’s name hadn’t been scrawled on his arm, never a moment where Johnny hadn’t been in his head. Those activists rallied around the idea that they were trying to protect children like Patrick, who never had a choice on who he’d be bonded with.

 

 _He didn’t mean it. It’s just different for him and Shaw. We know that._ Brandon and Andy had told them, maybe after a few too many drinks that their connection was slight at best. That sometimes they heard bits of what the other thought, felt a twinge whenever the other was physically hurt but besides that there was nothing.

 

Their connection was like two branches on the same tree. They shared the same deep root and it made them friendly, connected like brothers but that deep ache for the other had never grown.

 

For Johnny, not being connected to Pat, always in his head would be torture. Sometimes when Patrick was really angry he would leave the room, slam a door and try to shut Jon out of his brain by gripping their connection and squeezing it tight until they couldn’t feeling each other. Being the only voice in his head felt like suffocating and it could only last a few minutes before both of them sagged from the weakness, finally letting the energy flow from one end to the other.

 

 _Its not just Saad and Shaw. Andy told me that Seguin and Marchand have been texting them. Saying that they should all come out to the media in solidarity of nontraditional bonds._ Jonathan knew that Pat was close to Seguin and was one of the first to comment about the cruelty of trading Tyler away from his Soul Mate, Brad.

 

It had been a punch in Pat’s gut, that Johnny had felt like it was his own when Seguin covered Marchand’s name with tattoos. Not many people knew, let alone the media that Tyler had moved in with Jamie Benn. Jonathan remembered staring, maybe a little too obviously at the name on Jamie’s wrist during the Olympics. It had been fading, ugly and peeling, like rust on metal over time.

 

Benn had covered it, a little sheepishly, like he did everything, with cheeks reddening. “My Soul Mate died when we were three. Plane crash.” There was no sorrow in his eyes but Johnny felt the pain for him and started apologizing between breaths. It was hard to catch air at the idea of not having Pat at three, when their bond started to cement. “Its ok. I didn’t have that much time with him and when it happened it was painless. Like breaking a bone. It aches for months but then it heals.”

 

Jon felt out the bond that connected him and Pat. Where it was once a thin string, it was now as thick as a rope. He stroked it with his mind, feeling Pat reciprocate as he thought about Benn. _Benn deserves to be happy. So do Brandon, Andy, Nick and Bollig. Hell, even Marchy deserves some happiness._

 

 _But we don’t?_ Patrick pierced through their connections, his words wet with internal tears. Johnny stroked his hair, his fingers getting lost in the fine strands. Jon had claimed Pat’s hair as his own when they were fifteen. The year Patrick let it grow out and Johnny had gotten so lost in the threads of silk that he couldn’t focus in class for months.

 

_This isn’t about us. No one is going to tell us we can’t be together. No one is going to stop Soul Mates from bonding if they really want to. This is about our friends. They can’t be happy because society tells them that their wrong._

They physically couldn’t get any closer, Patrick wrapped tight in his arms but he pulled at their connection. Trying to bring their minds together until the vibration of thoughts yet formed rang through their heads. Until Johnny could no longer tell where he began and Patrick ended. They were literally one mind.

 

_I don’t understand what they are going through but they deserve to be happy. Shaw loves Bollig. Saad loves Leddy. Seguin loves Benn. And Marchand loves…_

 

“Himself.” Johnny wasn’t sure if he had spoken first or if it was Patrick but they both broke out in laughter simultaneously. Jon felt fingers working at his boxers, trying to pull them down and it didn’t take him much time to kick them off. He didn’t know why they had clothes on to begin with. Not when they both felt most content with bare flesh pressed against the others.  

 

Getting Patrick’s clothes off was a little more work but Johnny was always single minded in his tasks when it came to Pat. _Wait. Maybe I should go to Saad. Tell him that we’re gonna support him. Don’t want him to go to sleep angry._

Johnny paused, not on his own accord but from Patrick stopping his fingers through their connection. He stayed frozen there for a moment as Pat worked through their thoughts. He finally felt his fingers being released only for them to grab for his phone and pull up Saad’s number.

 

He started typing as Pat’s words rolled through his head and fingers. _We are gonna talk in the morning but I want you to know that you have our full support. Come whatever media storm, me and Johnny are behind you guys._ Jonathan pressed send and threw the phone on the bed.

 

 _Can we have a little you and me time now, Patrick?_ Johnny felt a soft laugh echo through his mind and it felt like home as he kissed Pat’s laughing mouth.

 

_When isn’t it you and me time, Johnny?_

 

 

 


End file.
